They travelled for five nights, finding as dark a shelter as possible during the day. Vereistenwald was a large country, mysterious, dark, and ancient. It was so thickly forested, so puckered by little mountain ranges, and criss-crossed by rivers that it remained largely unmapped. Felicity navigated carefully as she thought about leaving her homeland.

The moon hung full and lambent in a sky speckled with stars. Night noises surrounded her, the rustle of a woodland creature in the grass, the mournful call of a night bird. There was a heavy beat of wings and an owl swept above the path. A howl rose about a mile to her right.

"The doggies are out tonight," she observed. She felt a shiver of unease. A vampire could handle a werewolf one-on-one, but if she was overtaken by a pack—well, she could always take to the skies. She shook her head. That was being silly. The vampires and the werewolves had reached an uneasy understanding, and it was extremely rare there was an incident between them.

The vampire clans still operated on a feudal system of fortified towns and fiefdoms with no real boundaries and miles of forest in between. The werewolf clans always had some sort of feud going on and there was no law beyond the vampire codes to maintain the health of their Herds. It was far from perfect.

Felicity walked along, her hand resting gently on Spirit's side, and she marvelled at how such a great being walked without sound. The path wound gently down the slope, twisting, and turning but coming ever closer to the border. The trees began to thin, and the glades were more plentiful.

As they walked, they talked. A plan was beginning to form in Felicity's mind. "I think," she said slowly. "I think I'll try to find Harmony."

"Do you have any idea where she might be?" Spirit said.

Felicity shook her head.

"Ashtarom is a very large place," Spirit said gently. "There are many countries, some far bigger than Vereistenwald."

Felicity nodded. "I've given this some thought. She's a very fine pianist and artist. I think she'd try to find somewhere where there were a lot of people who appreciated those things."

"Hm, probably one of the big cities then."

Felicity nodded. "I'll start with Unun-Nili."

The unicorn considered, "You'll go to Ilonyia first?" she asked doubtfully.

"Hm, I agree it's not the best option out there." Felicity clicked her tongue. "But that's the closest border."

The people of Ilonyia had no magic and hated the supernatural. There was no place for a vampire there.

"We'll have to make do," she nodded her head. "It means I will have to get the hang of acting human very quickly."

"I'm not sure that's a step in the right direction," Spirit muttered.

Felicity ignored her. "If she's not there I'll go to Rephar."

She lifted her head, all her senses alert. She could smell wood smoke from a fire about a mile away and she heard the bass rumble of a man's voice.

A horse screamed.

As Felicity raced down the slope, she caught glimpses of furry shapes darting through the shadows. Werewolves! she thought grimly. Just what she needed now.

The lead wolf, the alpha, was massive, far larger than any normal wolf she had ever encountered. In his human form, he would tower over others. The breeze shifted, carrying with it a mix of musk and smoke, laced with a bright note of citrus—the alpha's scent.

She tried to assess how much danger she was in when the horse screamed again. She was close enough now that the sharp metallic smell of blood filled the air, but not human blood.

Moments later, she rounded the last sharp turn and stopped in horror. A stallion, hobbled, its head tied down and its ears laid flat, was struggling to both stay on his feet and avoid the blows that the man was inflicting with a long whip. The stallion's eyes showed their whites, and its coat glistened black under the streaks of blood and foam.

Felicity leapt forward and grabbed his arm, "Stop this, right now," she shrieked, careful to use only human level strength.

He shook her off. "This is none of your affair, missy. Best you be moving along while I teach Prince of Darkness here a lesson he'll never forget."

The man's face gleamed with sweat and veins bulged across his forehead.

Felicity lunged to grab at the upraised whip. With an abrupt gesture, the man sent Felicity stumbling backwards. She slipped on a loose rock, fell, hit her head on the hard ground and lay there stunned. No one had raised a hand to her like that before and it shocked her to the core. She'd made a mistake. Using human level strength had its drawbacks.

Through her hazy vision, she saw the werewolves lurking just inside the tree line. The man was completely unaware of them.

What were they waiting for? A few slunk forwards their eyes gleaming in the firelight. The alpha growled softly, and they retreated. This was very strange behaviour for werewolves.

The tip of the whip sang through the air and bit into the horse's flesh. Felicity lifted her head and shook it to scatter the stars before her eyes. There must be a way to stop this now, she thought as she drew her dagger.

She hefted her dagger until it sat perfectly in her grip. Then the blade that never dulled glinted as it sailed through the air, past the surprised man, and sliced through the hobble binding the stallion's forelegs.

"Let's even this fight out a bit, shall we?" Felicity leapt to her feet, crouched, her hands clenched into fists.

With a scream the horse reared, its hooves slicing through the air. The whip lashed out again, and again. The hooves came down, splitting the man's skull. He collapsed, twitched for a moment, and was still. The smell of blood, like hot, salted metal filled the air, his heat aura flared and then died to black before fading away. Before she could stop herself, Felicity fell on his neck and fed.

Minutes later, feeling the warm nourishment run through her, she lifted her head, a dazed look on her face.

The werewolves were still there, still sitting. Just watching. The alpha had an intent look as if he was trying to figure out a puzzle.

Goosebumps rose on her arms. "Spirit," she called softly.

Spirit stepped out from behind a bush.

Felicity inclined her head a fraction indicating the wolves. "What's going on here. Are they going to attack me or the horse?"

Spirit glanced around. "I don't think so. The alpha seems to be intrigued rather than predatory for now. Just keep doing what you're doing. No sudden moves."

"Argh," she groaned staring at the body of the man. "Why can't I stop this?"

"You were very hungry, and there was no saving him. Not after that blow from the horse's hooves," Spirit explained gently. "He was dead before he hit the ground. And it's very difficult to go against your nature. You are making progress. Yesterday you tracked that deer, brought it down gently and fed. You didn't take too much, and the deer was fine. A bit unsteady getting up but fine."

Felicity nodded thoughtfully. It hadn't been as good as human blood, nothing was ever going to be, but she was learning there were alternatives to treating people as things.

"Just because you're born one way doesn't mean you have to stay that way," she said. "And just because they do it doesn't mean that I do it. I am constantly reminding myself that I have stopped all this, until now." She waved her hand at the prone form of the man.

"I've watched them, you know, the Herds. Father says humans are inferior beings but maybe that's just because they don't live as long as we do. How can an individual Herd member learn as much as my Father can in its short lifespan? And does an inferior being create something like this?" She rootled around in her bag and produced a rolled-up canvas.

"Anna did this." She smoothed out the canvas she had taken that last evening she'd watched the young artist. "She was very critical of her artistic abilities; she didn't think it was good enough to keep. I think it's beautiful. They are sentient beings, Spirit, and it is wrong to feed upon them, despite my father's argument that we keep them safe, rarely kill any of them anymore, and prevent them from warring on one another. I think the Covenant is just a con job and it's wrong."

"Okay but don't get a glorified view of humans, sweet pea," the unicorn advised her. "They can be vampire-grade nasty." It nudged the body of the man with a hoof. "I give you Exhibit A."

Ignoring Spirit's cynicism, Felicity rocked back onto her haunches and surveyed her surroundings. The man had made camp in a clearing in the forest, there was a cooking fire burning in front of a small tent.

Whatever possessed him to camp in Vereistenwald, she wondered. She turned the battered body over and studied what was left of his face. He was a stranger in these parts.

A very foolish one.

In Vereistenwald, if you weren't a vampire, a werewolf, or from one of the Herds, your life would be nasty, brutal, and short.

Spirit walked over to the stallion that was standing a short distance away. The stallion's head was down, and he was blowing hard. Blood ran down his trembling sides from the gashes laid open by the whip. Felicity stood and hurried over, picking up her dagger on the way. The stallion rolled his eyes and shied away as she approached but Spirit's presence calmed him.

"There, there boy," Felicity clucked gently as she approached. "I won't hurt you. Spirit, come here please."

She took a few shavings from Spirit's red and black horn and looked around for some water and a small container. There were cooking utensils by the fire and a small canteen of water. She put the horn shavings in a small bowl and stirred the mixture into a thick paste before picking up the man's dishcloth.

The horse was swishing his tail now and his ears pricked forward alert and ready to run to the best of his injured ability.

"Ho, boy. Ho there," she patted the stallion's neck and, leaning forward, spoke softly to him. The stallion's ears swivelled one forward, one back to listen to her. Gently she ran her hands down his neck, "This might sting a bit, but it will make things better, I promise you."

Spirit had taught her the magical properties of her horn one day when they were walking and found an injured bird.

She dipped the cloth in the paste and wiped at the blood and foam. The horse's flesh shivered and rippled as she treated each wound, but he stood his ground and patiently waited until she finished. She ran her hand along his strong back and unusually broad shoulders to check she had doctored all his hurts.

"There that does it." Stepping back, she admired her handiwork. The wounds were already healing up. "You'll be good as new in no time. Your name really is Prince of Darkness," she examined his halter tag. "I think we can do better than that. Now, let's see what's in that tent."

With the flickering light from the campfire illuminating the interior, Felicity studied its contents. It held a sleeping roll, the Prince of Darkness' saddle, bridle, and saddle blanket and two saddlebags. She moved the saddlebags and revealed a bow and a quiver of silver tipped arrows. She whistled in amazement, "So that's why he was here." She kept a cautious distance from the silver. "Now who, or what was he hunting?"